McCain criticises Obama over Iraq plans
Republican John McCain intensified criticism of Barack Obama’s vow to pull troops out of Iraq, saying the Democratic presidential candidate’s plan would lay the Arab nation open to the kind of chaos that gripped it 18 months ago.
As Mr Obama prepares for his second trip to the Iraq – he was last there in January 2006 – Mr McCain also said he found it “remarkable, remarkable that somebody with no military experience or background” would have issued such a pledge without first having gone to Iraq for a briefing with the US commander, General David Petraeus.
Mr McCain, a former fighter pilot who was shot down over Hanoi and spent five years as a prisoner in North Vietnam, is banking on his long experience in military affairs and foreign policy to overcome voters’ preference for Mr Obama as the candidate who can best right the American economy.
The precipitous unravelling of the US economy has become the number one issue with US voters with a little more than four months remaining before the November 4 presidential election.
Mr McCain said Mr Obama’s plan to pull most American forces out of Iraq within 16 months of taking office was a recipe for “defeat, chaos, increased Iranian influence in the region and probably a wider war”.
The four-term Arizona senator, speaking with reporters on his campaign bus, also insisted that the change in military tactics and introduction of 30,000 more US forces into Iraq beginning early last year “had been a success.” The last of the additional troops left Iraq earlier this week.
Mr Obama credits the so-called surge in troops with bringing down violence in Iraq, but said it had only further diverted attention from the real dangers - the resurgent strength of the Taliban in Afghanistan and America’s failure to kill or capture al-Qaida chief Osama bin Laden.
He and his top deputies are believed to be hiding in the rugged mountains along the Afghan-Pakistan border.
Mr Obama’s trip schedule has not been announced, but he was expected to visit both Iraq and Afghanistan before moving on to Jordan, Israel, the West Bank and Europe.
Mr McCain has visited Iraq eight times, Mr Obama just once. Asked later whether he thought Mr Obama’s trip to Iraq and Afghanistan was a political stunt, Mr McCain said he did not.
“The fact is I’m glad that he’s going to Iraq. I’m glad that he’s going to Afghanistan. It’s long, long overdue if you want to lead this nation and secure our national security,” he told reporters on his campaign bus.
“If he was so concerned about Afghanistan and the threat there and the need to send additional troops, don’t you think he should have gone there?” Mr McCain asked.
Later in the day, however, he said he thought other parts of the trip seemed geared toward politics.
“If he has political rallies in other places, obviously it’s a political trip,” he said, referring to the possibility of an Obama speech at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin.
